Patron of the Arts

My Bub is not quite the uber-crafter that his older cousin Fancy is, but he does enjoying crafting and creating. Cutting out pictures from magazines and catalogs, drawing, painting, gluing, “sticker-ing” – all the creative work you would expect from a preschooler, as well as some speciality work such as affixing stickers and small plastic objects to empty Diet Coke cans and calling the finished product a “trophy.” He also specializes in live art installations wherein he uses his little brother as a tabula rasa and covers him with toys, clothes, baskets, and diapers.

He warmed my heart a couple of months back by describing himself as an “art man.”

The trophies and brother “sculptures” are a bit difficult to display. We have, however, found a way to give our “art man” his own gallery.

I bought some clothes line and clothes pins at our local hardware store, and my father-in-law got the job done with just a hammer and a few nails.

Voila! It’s a breakfast nook and an art gallery!

Notice how Bub even has a t-shirt hanging on the line!

Here’s a view a few weeks into the school year with fall creations from home and school rotating into the collection.

I’m happy with the gallery because it gives me a dedicated place to go with many of art man’s creations. The only problem? Bub’s a bit of a diva in that he’s only allowed for one of Little Bit’s creations to make it into the gallery. (It's the black and red line piece to the left of the art man's leaf man.)

There remains the perennial problem of what to do with the pieces after they rotate out. I’ve been deferring the question by placing them in a bin, which will eventually overflow and force some decisions. I guess some will get filed in the circular file and some will get saved. Decisions, decisions. But then, how much do you save and where do you put it? And, by the time anyone is interested in looking back at it, will you still be able to find it? Will it matter?

A person who has every significant* piece of writing she has done since seventh grade struggles will these issues, you know?

If there are art men and women in your life, how do you display their creations? Then, how do you decide what to save? Have you ever tried the tip from a few years ago (on Oprah, I think) about photographing the art and collecting the digital images in photo books?

What did your parents save of yours? Have you revisited your childhood works? Have your children seen your childhood creations?

Enough questions. How about some answers . . . Please share in the comments.

*Let's loosely characterize as "significant" anything that includes words and, um, sentences.